Scott Hagerstrom, director of the Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity, says his group put up mock eviction notices on Detroit homes in order to spur action against a new public bridge, not to scare residents.

"Sometimes when people see something and it looks immediate, they take action," he told WJR-AM 760 host Frank Beckmann this morning. "And that's what we were trying to stress."

Local members of Americans for Prosperity, a national group backed by the powerful Koch brothers that is reportedly funding Tea Party efforts, put up the notices Monday in Detroit's Delray neighborhood, the site of a proposed public bridge that would connect the city to Windsor.

If the bridge is built, several Delray residents would lose their home to eminent domain, but state law dictates they would be receive at least 125 percent of the home's value.

Young, like several other local Democrats, has suggested he'll likely support the bridge bills if they include specific benefits for Delray residents, such as environmental clean up.

But speaking with Fox 2, Young said the mock eviction notices were unwarranted because state officials already have talked to anybody who might be displaced by the bridge.

Scott Brines, a board member for the Southwest Detroit Community
Benefits Coalition, told the Associated Press he thought the flyers were
a scare tactic.

"It's shameful that anyone would use residents as pawns in a political fight," he said.

American's for Prosperity first joined the bridge debate in April, announcing a campaign against the New International Trade Crossing, as the project is now known.

At the time, NITC spokesman Tom Shields said he suspected the Moroun family, which owns the Ambassador Bridge and has been fighting the public crossing, was behind the "misinformation campaign."

Hagerstrom said the Morouns were not involved in the eviction notices but would not say whether they had donated to the group. "We have over fifty-five thousand members here in Michigan," he said. "All our donors are members and we do not disclose who our members are."

Check out the full WJR-AM 760 interview with Hagerstrom in the embedded player above.